mandarin fish in biocube???

the title was spposed to be biocube btw lol. i have this biocube 14 and i was thinking about getting a pair of harlequin shrimp and maybe some kind of mandarin do yall think that this is to small of a tank for the mandarin or what other type of cool fish could i maybe put in there any advice would be awesome

 

Most definitely too small. Mandarins tend to feed on copepods and are hit or miss on anything we feed our other fish. You need about 50 to 60 lbs minimum of live rock and a refugium to have a safety factor for keeping a mandarin.

 

Not a chance. Needs lots and lots of live rock to hunt down pods. Mine, in a 72 g, has never eaten anything I fed the tank. Just hunts all day. It won't find enough to eat in a biocube and it will quickly die. Even in a large tank the tank needs to be well established before adding it.

 

soo even if i get one that has been trained to eat brine shrimp or something of the sort you still think it is too small

 

If you can get it to eat prepared foods then I don't see a problem, or you could grow pods somewhere else and add some to the dt every now and then(for that size probably at least once a day).

 

I don't know about the mandarin, but in a 14 gallon you could do a clown, some type of goby (smaller ones, like clown goby or firefish), or a jawfish.

 

Mine has always eaten frozen rotifers. Lately its also been eating frozen brine when I feed that. Brine isn't going to really help though because its basically candy to our tanks. That being said I have loads of pods. I have only have a 46 bowfront but I have around 80 lbs live rock in it. Then I have a refugium that has 5 gallons of water in it. And I have a sump that has probably has like 3-4 gallons in it and another 10lb piece of live rock. I have plenty of pods.

 

thanks. okk fine then thanks for crushing my dreams guys haha jk but do u think the pair of harlequin shrimp would be fine as long as i feed them starfish